Climate Change Assessment Activities
- Climate Science Special Report, Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), Vol. I (2017). (T. Knutson is lead author of Ch. 3: Detection and Attribution of Climate Change, and of Appendix C: Detection and Attribution Methodologies Overview. NEW: T. Knutson, webinar on “Detection and Attribution of Climate Change from a U.S. Perspective” (60 min. presentation; 20 min. Q&A; posted 7/23/2018).
- “Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change”, an assessment by a WMO Expert Team (Nature Geoscience, March 2010). For a copy of the full article, contact (email): nlomarda@wmo.int
- NOAA State of the Science Fact Sheet on “Atlantic Hurricanes, Climate Variability, and Global Warming”
Publications
- Bibliography (including .pdf versions of abstracts and some full articles)
Technical Notes
- A Note on 20th Century Equatorial Pacific Sea Surface Temperatures as Reconstructed in the LDEO and UKMO Data Sets
- FMS Slab Ocean Model Technical Documentation
Data Sets
- Simulated Atlantic basin and global tropical cyclone track and intensity data sets
- Adjusted observed Atlantic tropical storm or hurricane data sets
Climate Group Research
GFDL Global Warming Simulation
Thomas R. Knutson
Research Meteorologist, NOAA/GFDL
My focus areas:
– Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change
– Detection and Attribution of Climate Change
– Climate Variability
– Climate Change Assessments
Research Interests
- Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change:
- Global warming and hurricanes (Overview web page, Updated June 6, 2018)
- Atlantic major hurricane frequency: Its recent decline and the role of the Atlantic overturning circulation. (Nature Communications, 2017) by X. Yan, R. Zhang, and T. Knutson
- Intense tropical cyclone activity: Global projections for the late 21st century from dynamical downscaling of CMIP5/RCP4.5 scenarios (J. Climate, 2015).
- Projections of rainfall from U.S. landfalling tropical cyclones using regional models (Climate Dynamics, 2015), by D. Wright, T. Knutson, and J. Smith.
- Atlantic hurricane activity: 21st century dynamical downscaling projections using CMIP3 and CMIP5 models (J. Climate, 2013). See Research Highlight page (summary of article).
- Intense Atlantic hurricanes: modeled impact of anthropogenic warming on their frequency. Science, 2010, by M. Bender, T. Knutson, et al.)
- Past Atlantic hurricane activity: How well do we know it? A web site on adjusting for “missing storms” in the past Atlantic hurricane data. Adjusted datasets are available here, based on work by Vecchi and Knutson.
- Simulated hurricane animations web page
- Detection and Attribution of Climate Change:
- Precipitation trends over land regions: model assessment of detectable human influences and possible low bias in model trends Journal of Climate (2018) Supplemental Material
- Streamflow timing over North America: Climate model assessment of changes in winter-spring timing. Journal of Climate (2018) by Jonghun Kam, T. R. Knutson, and P. C. D. Milly
- Record global warmth in 2016: CMIP5 model-based assessment of anthropogenic influence. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. (2017)
- Summertime heat stress: Detection of anthropogenic influence. Climatic Change (2016). Supplemental Material.
- Extreme annual-mean warmth during 2013 over regions of Australia and the western tropical Pacific: a multimodel assessment. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. (2014).
- Seasonal and annual mean precipitation extremes occurring during
2013: A U.S. focused analysis. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. (2014). See also the Research Highlight. page.
- Arctic sea ice extent in 2012: The role of global climate change. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. (2013)
- Regional surface temperature trends during the 20th century: assessment of CMIP3 and CMIP5 simulations (J. Climate, 2013). See Research Highlight page (summary of article).
- Early 20th century global warming: climate model simulations (Delworth and Knutson, Science, 2000)
- Coral bleaching (Donner et al. PNAS 2007)
- Land cover change affects on climate (Findell et al., J. Climate, 2006)
- Sahel drought (Held et al. PNAS paper)
- Climate Variability
- Underestimated AMOC Variability and Implications for AMV and Predictability in CMIP Models. Geophysical Research Letters (2018) by X. Yan, R. Zhang, and T. Knutson
- Atlantic major hurricane frequency: Its recent decline and the role of the Atlantic overturning circulation. (Nature Communications, 2017) by X. Yan, R. Zhang, and T. Knutson
- Multidecadal climate variability: Observed and simulated fingerprints, and their contributions to periods of global SST stagnation. Journal of Climate (2017) by M. Barcikowska, T. Knutson, and R. Zhang.
- Observed Barents Sea winter sea ice decline: On the discrepancy between observed and CMIP5 multi-model changes. Nature Communications (2017) by Dawei Li, Rong Zhang, and T. Knutson
- Global warming hiatus: prospects for a prolonged slowdown in global warming in the early 21st century. Nature Communications (2016). Supplemental Material.
- Early 20th century global warming: climate model simulations (Delworth and Knutson, Science, 2000)
- Tropical Pacific decadal variability and trends (Knutson and Manabe, J. Climate, 1998)
- Past Atlantic hurricane activity: How well do we know it? A web site on adjusting for “missing storms” in the past Atlantic hurricane data. Adjusted datasets are available here.
